I'm sorry, but he's pulling a Varasano here by making the implication that Joe's is naturally leavened. I spent just as much time at Joe's as he did, right about the same time period. I would bet every cent that I've made and every cent that I will make on Joe's pizza being made with baker's yeast. You've tasted it yourself. Do you really think there's sourdough in Joe's pizza?

As far as tasting Joe's pizzas the two times I did, I would say no I did not taste any sourdough in Joe's crusts

The pizza I made yesterday had no sourdough taste. It just had a better flavor in the crust

I have tried many formulations for NY style pizzas. I found I like oil and sugar for a NY style pizza. Walter is a good example though of not liking oil in a NY style pizza not too long ago. Walter did not like any oil in his NY style doughs either for a long while. After he experimented he found he did like oil in a NY style doughs. Who's to say whether oil is right or wrong in a NY style dough. All of our tastes are different.

I don't know the answer to this, but how did AVPN eventually come up with their standards for Neapolitan pizza? If I had to guess, they had a round table discussion with experienced people who eventually agreed to what is most commonly acceptable practice in making Neapolitan pizza. AVPN started in the 80's, so before then there was no such thing as authentic Neapolitan pizza? Discussions like this is the very reason AVPN was founded in the first place.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I'm going to trust an obsessive member who has done years of research on this topic.

I don't know the answer to this, but how did AVPN eventually come up with their standards for Neapolitan pizza? If I had to guess, they had a round table discussion with experienced people who eventually agreed to what is most commonly acceptable practice in making Neapolitan pizza. AVPN started in the 80's, so before then there was no such thing as authentic Neapolitan pizza? Discussions like this is the very reason AVPN was founded in the first place.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I'm going to trust an obsessive member who has done years of research on this topic.

Do you really believe that if someone was making great NY pizza using SD rather than baker's yeast anyone would care other than Scott and maybe a couple other people?

I just popped out to Google and looked at the first 10 returns. One is a NY Times Video with the pizza maker from Roberta's: He uses bakers yeast but adds "00" flour to the recipe and does not mention sodium bromate in flour. Then there is another NY Pizza video being made in a big hobart with a dozen eggs. It would be great as has been pointed out if all New Yorkers could agree on what is the ingredient definition of NY pizza. Perhaps, a bill should be drawn up by NY legislators It would be very helpful to have a default definition, even if it's only to clarify the matter on the forum.Cheers,Don

People that have eaten it and know something about it? One can make NY style pizza with or without oil, but to make the claim that authentic NY style cannot have oil in it, as Terry did- it's preposterous.

It's simple. I could never recreate a NY style pizza using my 550* oven. For me to get close to proper browning, I had to bake for 12+ minutes which I later learned was due to the acidifying nature of sourdough cultures. Maybe I just don't know what I'm doing, that's fine. But one thing I do know is when I stopped using the sourdough starter for NY style, I finally started making NY pizza.

Josh,

You make a good point. There are limitations when attempting to make a NY style pizza leavened with a natural starter in a standard home oven. Getting good oven spring and decent crust coloration can be challenging. Even Jeff Varasano went to using commercial yeast along with his sourdough starter to be sure that he got good oven spring, and he also needed a modified oven to get the necessary bake temperatures.

For many people, using just commercial yeast is good enough. But just as Marco (pizzanapoletana) kicked the Neapolitan style pizza up a notch by using a natural leavening system, with exceptional results, the same can be achieved with the NY style. As I see it, it is part of the evolution of the NY style. That style had to adapt to many technological advancements and improvements over the decades--in flours, yeast varieties, ovens (and notably the gas fired deck oven), commercial mixers and commercial refrigeration. When high-gluten flour started to be used for the NY style, it may not have been greeted with open arms by all of the pizza operators at the time, but that flour became part of the evolution of the NY style and is now the dominant type of flour in NYC. I view the use of starters for the NY style as just a continuation of the evolution of the NY style. Starters need not be adopted by everyone, just as pizza operators over the course of the evolution of the NY style did not adopt every new advancement or improvement.

scott123

It would be very helpful to have a default definition, even if it's only to clarify the matter on the forum.

It's not that cut and dry. The historic lack of sourdough is incredibly simple and straightforward, but, when you get into other ingredients/processes, there's more wiggle room. For instance, Mitch mentioned great old NY style vs. crappy new NY style- a topic, outside of this discussion, that's very near and dear to my heart. For just about any New Yorker born after around 1985, all they know is the crappy version. Which style gets to be the 'default definition?' The older generation or younger? And that's just one aspect that muddies the water.

For just about any New Yorker born after around 1985, all they know is the crappy version. Which style gets to be the 'default definition?' The older generation or younger? And that's just one aspect that muddies the water.

That is the quagmire. Age and what things were like in your childhood memory. How many here are trying to recreate a specific taste from a pizza place that ate at when they were 12? There are hundreds of threads dedicated to them with 10's of thoursands of posts. Perhaps that is the line of demarkation between the two? How about child boards inside of NY pizza by era? I never have had NY pizza made in the 1960's - but there may be some here that pine for it - and 1980's NY pizza as a huge disappointment to them. Child boards by NY pizza era - one possible answer.

Logged

I have done wrong.. but what I did, I thought needed to be done.

scott123

For many people, using just commercial yeast is good enough. But just as Marco (pizzanapoletana) kicked the Neapolitan style pizza up a notch by using a natural leavening system, with exceptional results, the same can be achieved with the NY style. As I see it, it is part of the evolution of the NY style.

Peter, respectfully, you've been able to bake awe inspiring pizza with your oven, but it's not an oven that can do fast NY style bakes. As much as I rail against the deceptive manner in which baking steel was first marketed and their exorbitant prices, it should be pretty clear that all forms of steel have been a quantum leap for countless home pizza bakers and that, for those with the right ovens, the faster bakes that steel has provided have been universally embraced- both inside this forum and outside as well. If fast baked NY style pizza is better, and the steel wave built consensus seems to be pointing in that direction, how can you see natural leavening as the next step for NY style pizza, when, as far as I know, you've never tasted NY style pizza at it's best?

Some people resist change...If more and more NY pizzerias are using natural leavening in their pies, then it is becoming part of the style.

The NY style will have evolved again, just like it did when ADY and IDY replaced fresh yeast, when bromated flour was first used (and now eliminated in some places), when coal went out and deck ovens became popular, when high gluten flour was introduced etc...

I don't see why natural leavening should be seen as some unholy bastardization when you consider all of the other changes that have occurred.

scott123

Scott, perhaps Terry takes an even more traditional view than you? Is it not correct that NY-style pizza originally contained neither oil nor sugar?

As I've said many times before, I don't subscribe to the 'elite' NY style classification and 'street.' I call early NY pizza 'coal' style. Coal style typically contains neither oil nor sugar. But his favorite pizzeria, as I said, was Joe's, and Joe's isn't coal style, it's NY style. I know, for a fact, that Joe's isn't naturally leavened, but I can't say with absolutely certainty that it contains oil. Based on the way it browns, though, I'm 99.9% certain.

In other words, when Terry says authentic NY style pizza can't contain oil, Joe's is part of that list- and places like Joes- along with, of course, coal. He can say that about coal (or 'elite') all he wants, but Joe's is NY and NY contains oil more than it doesn't. In fact, I would go as far as to say that oil is only second to bake time when differentiating between coal and NY style pizza. And, considering coal's renown for inconsistent bake times, oil might even have a bit of an edge.